What is SPF?

When choosing a sun care product, you may have seen the letters SPF over and over again. Do you know what it means? D you know of its importance when determining your solar protection?

SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor. And in a product this means how it prevents your skin from burning. The higher the number, the higher the protection provided. It ranges from 1 to 45, measuring UVB protection.

If you use a product with a SPF of 15, you are protecting yourself of 92% of the harmful rays of the sun. And can stay on the sun maximum for a time of 150 minutes without suffering from skin burning, and I say maximum because it usually is less, due to some factors like water and sweat, that washes off the sun protection. SPF 15 for examples protect us 15 times more form the sun. Skin starts burning after 10 minutes to sun exposure, so it's like a "pass" that lets you stay under the sun for more time.

SPF can also be used to measure clothing protection from the sun. We have for example that nylon stockings have an SPF 2, hats an SPF 3-6, and sun protective clothing SPF 30.

Now, we hope you know how SPF works. It is of the most importance to wear sun protection, specially if you are under the sun a lot of time, choose at least 15 SPF, and adjust the SPF if you need more protection.